Durin's Day
by uncer giedd geador
Summary: The turning of the year is the time for old stories and new promises, the education of the young and the remembrances of the old. Thorin attempts to teach some family history to his young sister-sons, Dís laments her kin's poor choice of gifts, and Fíli and Kíli seize their birth-right (and their new wooden swords), causing a small riot in the process.


_For all my young warriors, from those gone before to those yet to come. May your minds always be sharper than your swords, may your hearts be full of laughter, and may all your paths lead you safely home. _

Durin's Day

Warm food, warm halls, warm hearts. If Thorin closed his eyes and listened only to the songs of those drinking, the thrum of the fiddle and the lure of the pipe he could well believe that he was back in Erebor, back in his father's halls, in the old days before the dragon came. Thoughts like these often troubled him these days, and long had. For others these mountains were home now, but Thorin always remembered that feeling of belonging that settles in you in a place which has seen your fathers' fathers, and their fathers' fathers before them, the stories that grow, the legends that root…

A sudden blow to Thorin's knee jarred through his reminiscences. "Yaaaaarrrr!"

Bending down, Thorin scooped up the eldest of his sister's children by the scruff of his neck. Fíli continued to flail at him with the wooden sword he was grasping tightly in his hand.

"This is the sort of welcome I get in my own halls, is it?" Thorin tried not to chortle as he lectured the lad. "Durin's Day is a time for good company, food and drink, friends and family, not-"

Something bounced off the side of his head and clattered to the floor, and a voice shrilled out behind him. "Let him go, let him go!" Another tiny arrow pinged off his ear as he reached behind him and swung the younger brother off his perch and round as well.

"So what fool gave you two young warriors weapons then?"

Kíli just bared his teeth at his uncle, but Fíli piped up. "Balin gave them to us."

Thorin smiled. "Perhaps not the wisest of gifts."

Fíli continued, paying him no attention. "But he gave me a sword, look, because he said I'm big enough, but he only gave Kíli a bow, because bows are for sissies-"

"Are not!"

"Are!"

"Not!"

Thorin broke in. "I know many brave warriors who use the bow, though I think most of them do not sneak up behind people to do it. And why did you attack me, anyway?"

"It was a game…"

Kíli was less diplomatic than his elder brother. "He said you're a big monster, and we've got to attack you and and-"

"Pretend. _Pretend _he's a monster. You're such an idiot. Uncle Thorin's not a monster and"- Fíli switched into a conspiratorial whisper - "he might give us presents."

"Presents!"

Thorin looked down at the two suddenly eager faces. "How about I tell you a story instead?" Kíli nodded immediately, Fíli looked as though he was about to try '…and then presents?', but thought better of it and nodded instead. Thorin found a quiet corner of the hall and sat them both down.

"I want the one with the orc. The big big nasty orc that-"

"No! I want Durin! Durin!"

"Shhh. I will tell you the story of how we left our homeland and our halls under the Mountain."

"Ooh, the dragon, dragon!"

"Shut up Kíli!"

Thorin closed his eyes, yet still feeling the boys' gaze on him. "Far away, over the Misty Mountains…" (it was how most of the old songs and stories began these days) "the Kingdom of Erebor stood under the Lonely Mountain and ruled in might. Many kings were lords of that realm, many of your forefathers, and the wealth and friendship of that land was far beyond that of anywhere in the world today. That is the mountain where I was born, and where you would have been born, if the world did not move the way it did."

Thorin took a deep breath. "I was there on that day in my grandfather's halls, when the shout came down from the mountain. I went up to the ramparts and saw the pines burning on the ridges and tasted the ash in the air. And then I saw the dragon. It was a large as the stories say, and when it swooped down over Dale its shadow blotted out the towers and its tail swept them down like pillars of dust. And when it breathed out the air was hotter than the wind from a furnace, and the streets of the town smouldered. And that is the first time I can ever remember feeling truly afraid."

In the pause that followed a question rose up amid the crackle of the hearth fire. "But you killed it, didn't you?"

Kíli received an elbow from his brother and a gentle, rueful smile from his uncle. "A dragon is too big to kill, Kíli. We charged at it with a hundred warriors, sliced it and pierced it with a thousand swords and arrows, and still it did not fall. It had scales like mithril, and no care to be stopped."

"So what did you do?" Fíli whispered.

"We left." Thorin replied simply. "We took what we could and left. And after many years of wandering we came here and made it our home."

Fíli frowned. "So that dragon's still alive?"

"I do not know."

"So will we go back some day?"

Thorin couldn't help but smile. "If we did it would be a long and dangerous journey, and the dragon may still be there guarding his treasure… But one day I shall go back there, yes."

"Will you take us?"

Thorin blinked, and Fíli picked up where his brother left off. "I want adventures and dragons. I want to be in stories too. You will take us, won't you?"

"We'll fight for you!" Kíli declared boldly, attempting to nock an arrow.

Fíli nodded enthusiastically, eyes glazing over slightly. "I'll fight for you, uncle, even if there _is_ a dragon. I'll kill it and anything else, or I'll die by your side. I'll-"

"Me too! Me too!"

Thorin ruffled their hair, trying not to show how moved he was, though he doubted that the pair, Kíli especially, were old enough to fully understand the declaration they had just made. "When I go, I will take you" he promised. "It is your birth-right too."

"Thank you! Thank you!" Fíli jumped up happily.

"Fíli, Fíli, let's play dragons! You can be the d-"

"No, no, you're the dragon and I'm the mighty warrior. I'm the biggest!"

"No, dragons are bigger! No…!"

Thorin watched them chasing each other down the hall, barely noticing the person settling down beside him. "Stories instead of gifts, Thorin Oakenshield?"

Thorin turned to greet his sister. "Stories are the greatest gifts, Dís."

"That's what you told me when you were younger, when you forgot to find _me_ something."

"I have made them a gift each, actually." Glancing down the hall, Thorin unwrapped a parcel from his cloak. It contained a small knife, the blade forged from strong steel, attached to a finely polished haft. "But seeing the way they wield those toys Balin made them I thought it might perhaps be better to wait a few more years."

"Thorin, you will be waiting forever." Dís smiled quietly. "They remind me of you and Frerín. Look after them, won't you, when they're older?"

Thorin took her hand in his, knowing she had overheard his earlier promise to the boys. "I will."

"And try and teach them how to be safe with those wooden things, and your gifts."

Thorin looked a bit more dubious. "I will try."

Dís sighed. "I will have to keep a watch on them night and day now. You are giving them knives, Óin has given them flints and tinder… Kíli has already tried to set fire to the fiddle I gave him…"

"It is a wonderful feast." Thorin side-tracked her desperately. "The food is excellent. Balin even told me that you had found fireworks for later-" His praises did not have the desired effect as his still-little sister bit down on her finger in sudden horror.

"Thorin, Thorin, which way did they go?!"

"I…" In the distance he heard he heard the crack of the first rocket, already leaping to his feet. _Pines flaming on the mountain. _

"That way!"

* * *

_Cross-referencin__g is allowed, is it not, if it gives a lighter ending? As is festive craziness, in safe doses. _

atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.


End file.
